Various types of pipe may be manufactured according to many different processes. For example, oil field pipe of three to four feet in diameter and 80 to 100 feet in length is frequently welded from sheet stock in a longitudinally continuous manner according to several simultaneous steps. For instance, as illustrated in prior art FIG. 1, a strip of metal or skelp S is unrolled from a coil of sheet metal (not shown). The skelp S is curled into a cylindrical shape by bringing laterally opposed edges E of the skelp S together to form a seam B. The seam B is butt welded, thereby leaving a radially inwardly extending weld bead W. The weld bead W is removed with a deburring apparatus D that remains stationary as a freshly formed pipe P is fed downstream over the deburring apparatus D.
The deburring apparatus D includes a support arm A suspended from a welding machine (not shown), a cylinder C carried by the support arm A projecting into an upstream end of the freshly formed pipe P, and deburring tooling T pivotably carried at a downstream end of the cylinder. The deburring tooling T usually includes a housing H pivotably mounted to the cylinder C, and rollers R rotatably carried by the housing H to engage an internal surface of the freshly formed pipe P and are grooved to straddle the weld bead W to set the depth of the tooling T. The deburring tooling T also includes a cutting insert I carried by the housing H between the rollers R for cutting the weld bead W off the pipe P. The housing H pivots about a pivot axis V, which is disposed between the rollers R and downstream of the cutting insert I. The housing H passively floats in a pivotable manner, but is not actively adjusted. The depth of cut may be adjusted according to a plane established between the two rollers R and the tooling T. The front roller R may be moved to shift the angle of the plane.
But conventional deburring devices typically are not adjustable for “in-process” cutter changes and/or depth of cut changes, during the pipe manufacturing operation and, at the very least, are not adjustable over a plurality of incremental or infinitely variable adjustment positions. Moreover, the inside of the pipe is a very high temperature environment and conventional deburring devices do not provide a robust method of adjusting cutters or depth of cut on an in-process basis.